This invention relates generally to the treatment of liquids and more particularly to the treatment of liquids to remove deleterious or undesirable matter.
There are many instances wherein it is necessary to treat a variety of liquids to remove deleterious or undesirable matter therefrom. In many parts of the world, there exists a need for treating water so that it can be used in a variety of different ways such as potable water, industrial uses, treating of effluent, bleaching of pulp in the pulp and paper industry and many other uses. In many locations there are a variety of sources available for providing water but the water from such sources is contaminated with deleterious or undesirable matter therein. In some instances, the contaminated water is treated with treated gases issuing from an ozone generator to remove such deleterious or undesirable matter. While several types of apparatus and methods have been used to treat such water with such treated gases, there still remains a need for an efficient and economical system for the treatment of such water with such treated gases. In one of the presently used systems to treat contaminated water with treated gases issuing from an ozone generator, the apparatus uses an oxygen generator wherein the atmospheric air is treated to separate the oxygen therefrom. The separated oxygen is then fed into an ozone generator that converts the oxygen into treated gases which are then passed through contaminated water flowing through a treatment tower, preferably using a diffuser to bubble the treated gases through the contaminated water. In a somewhat less efficient system, atmospheric air is fed directly into the ozone generator. In such a system, the contaminated water is introduced into the treatment tower and as it passes through the treatment tower, it is subjected to the treated gases and the treated water then exists the treatment tower. While the foregoing systems do provide a treatment for the contaminated water, it is desirable to increase the efficiency of and lower the economics of such systems.
This invention provides apparatus and method for the treatment of contaminated liquids, which in the preferred embodiment of the invention is contaminated water, with treated gases issuing from an ozone generator so as to remove or at least substantially reduce the deleterious or undesirable matter therefrom.
In a preferred embodiment of the invention, atmospheric air is fed into an oxygen generator wherein the oxygen, O2, is separated from the atmospheric air. The separated oxygen is fed into a housing containing at least one ultra violet lamp, but preferable a plurality of ultra violet lamps. In the preferred embodiments of the invention, the ultra violet lamps are chosen from those that emit light between about 185 and 254 nanometers. The type of ultra violet lamp chosen for use with this invention depends upon the contaminated water being treated. The ultra violet lamps treat the oxygen being fed into the housing so that oxygens O1, O2and O3 exit from the housing. The exiting oxygens O1, O2 and O3 are fed into an ozone generator which treats the oxygens O1, O2 and O3 and the treated gases exit from the ozone generator which treated gases contain an abundance of ionized ozone, O3. A continuous flow of contaminated water is introduced into a treatment tower having a diffuser located therein. The treated gases from the ozone generator are fed into the diffuser to be bubbled through the contaminated water passing through the treatment tower so that uncontaminated water exits from the treatment tower. While a diffuser is used in the description of this invention, it is understood that the various conventional methods and apparatus used to treat a liquid with gases can be used instead of a diffuser. As described below, the treated gases exiting from the ozone generator in the preferred embodiments of this invention are of a nature that a substantially less quantity of the treated gases may be used to remove the contaminated matter in the same quantity of contaminated water as in existing systems.